There are those who want to make Italy the first country against facial recognition

During the Privacy Week, the member of the college of the Guarantor Scorza expressed the wish for a rule to ban mass surveillance

Video surveillance cameras (Pixabay) To make Italy the first country in Europe capable of to legislate against facial recognition in public places, banning the use of artificial intelligence for mass surveillance. The hope is from Guido Scorza, a member of the board of the Privacy Guarantor and a strong name for the protection of personal data in Italy. During the work of the Privacy Week, which closed on Friday 15 October in Milan, Scorza highlighted the need to regulate the sector to prevent some sudden political blitz from giving the green light to biometric surveillance in the name of security, ticking the Weapons of the sponsor.

“My personal position - said Scorza - coincides with that of the personal data protection authorities scattered throughout Europe: a clear closure with respect to the widespread use of intelligent facial recognition systems. It is a technology universally considered immature and the side effects seem to be clearly superior to the hoped-for benefits ”.

Scorza spoke in the debate Facial recognition in public places: the dark side of technology organized by Privacy Network to discuss the dangers of biometric surveillance that guarantees the unique identification of a person through artificial intelligence tools. The examples are not only abroad: while in Hong Kong facial recognition has been widely used to monitor street movements against China, in the United States the cameras aim to keep the security of cities under control but they are certainly not immune from errors.

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In Italy there are those who try to use these facial recognition systems, promoting their use, promising in return more protection for citizens. “At this rate - underlines Matteo Navacci, co-founder of Privacy Network - we run the risk of crossing the line and to buy our security we are willing to give up our freedom. Security at all costs is a virus that is scourging us: in Como and Udine the municipal administrations have tried to install biometric cameras to increase perceived protection, but they have been stopped by the Privacy Guarantor ".

This is the trend in Europe too, experts reason. While, on the one hand, the legislation slows down the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, on the other, exceptions are put in place for safety reasons. “The ban is watered down by very broad exceptions that individual countries can implement in a discretionary way”, underlines Andrea Baldrati, co-founder of Privacy Network.

"We hope that there will be a turnaround, also in light of the important resolution approved by the European Parliament on 6 October which bans facial recognition for mass surveillance not only in public places, but also at school, in hospitals and at airports. And that's good because we're dealing with immature technology that we feed with data without being able to really predict its future capabilities, ”he says.

Taking action, highlights Diego Dimalta, co-founder of Privacy Network, is never too late. “We are in an opposite position with respect to those who would like to install facial recognition in public places in a widespread manner. And this is because it is a technology that has very marked dark sides: if it ends up in the wrong hands it can lead to very serious consequences. To give an idea, just think that if it had existed in the years of fascism, there would have been no Resistance, with the partisans who would have been identified before they could go into action ", the expert reasons.

For this reason Privacy Network is a supporter of the European campaign Reclaim your face, created “to sensitize the authorities to approve adequate legislation against biometric facial recognition - says Dimalta -. It is not too late, on the contrary: we who work in the world of privacy hear the phrase 'now it is too late' at least once a week, but I think it is just an excuse for many who do not want to act. Facial recognition is a new technology and this is the exact time to intervene ”.


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Cybersecurity Europe Gdpr Privacy Surveillance globalData.fldTopic = "Cybersecurity, Europe, Gdpr, Privacy, Surveillance "

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